


I kept the first for another day

by okaystop



Series: that has made all the difference [3]
Category: Crooked Media RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Bisexuality, Chicago (City), Feelings, First Kiss, Getting Together, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-02-10 14:06:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18661909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okaystop/pseuds/okaystop
Summary: Tommy didn't know when it happened, when he stopped looking at Jon as his best friend and started looking at him as - something else. Maybe there was never a difference and Tommy was just now beginning to admit that in this post-White House world, he could let himself feel more for Jon. The problem was (and likely would always be) that Tommy could only be sure of his own feelings and could always only wonder about Jon's.Or, an interlude: Tommy visits Jon in Chicago.





	I kept the first for another day

**Author's Note:**

> I know it's not part 3, not really, but I've been itching to share this part of the story, so indulge me and travel back to see where it all splintered.
> 
> Please don't share outside of fandom circles. Kudos and comments are always appreciated. I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it.
> 
> Title is taken from Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken."

_Chicago, Spring 2013_

Jon handed Tommy a beer and gestured around the sparse one-bedroom apartment he was subletting a short walk from the University of Chicago. "Feels a little bit like coming full circle, doesn't it?" he asked. He waited for Tommy to sit on the couch and then joined him, turning his whole body so that he was facing him. His knee knocked against Tommy's thigh. "Back in Chicago, having a beer on a borrowed couch with the wind howling outside."

Tommy wrapped his hand around the bottle and spread himself out, his thigh pushing against Jon's knee. "It's quieter this time," he said. "There's not, like, ten of us sharing a place with a hole in the ceiling."

"Holes," Jon corrected. "There were more than one."

"Holes everywhere," Tommy laughed. "Do you remember the one in the bathroom? Over the toilet?" At Jon's nod, he kept going. "My mom told me to take an umbrella in there if it was raining, but I never tried it, just did some weird contortion thing to avoid the dripping and the bucket."

Jon shook his head, his eyes bright. "Man, I can't believe that was our lives. Look at - I mean, really, look where we are now."

Tommy tipped his bottle forward so that Jon could clink his against it. "Here's to growing up and moving out," he said.

Jon let his bottle, and his gaze, linger. "To fresh starts," he added. _Together_ , Tommy thought. They both drank their beer in silence for a moment, and Tommy let himself relax. 

It'd been six years since they'd met, six years that stretched out behind them like six decades. A senate race, two Presidential campaigns, inaugurations, countless hotel rooms, long nights on Air Force One, last-minute trips across the world, too many drinks at D.C. dive bars, falling asleep on the couch in Jon's office at the White House - _the White House_! But they did it all together. Throughout all of it, Jon was with Tommy and Tommy was with Jon.

"I can't believe we're here," he said, his voice filled a little bit with awe. "I keep thinking I need to check my Blackberry or that I'm late for work or someone's going to pull me into the sit room. And then I remember, I don't have to and I'm not and I'll probably never be stuck in there again. I can just - be here." _With you_ , he left unspoken.

"Pretty cool, isn't it?" Jon said. He leaned his cheek against his palm, elbow on the back of the couch. He smiled widely at Tommy. "Hey, I'm glad you're here with me," he said, echoing Tommy's thoughts, but he probably didn't mean it like Tommy meant it. He put his hand on Tommy's thigh, just above his knee.

Tommy focused on Jon's face, not on his hand. "Me, too," he said, his voice tight. He cleared his throat, ready to blame the beer, if he needed to blame anything. 

Jon pulled his hand away and sat back, breaking contact with their legs, too. When Jon swallowed down some more of his beer, Tommy watched the movement of his throat, long and pale, the way his collar bone moved. He looked away before Jon could catch him. "Hey, did you want to go get a pizza or something?" he asked, his voice sounding far away. 

"Sure," Jon said. "I wonder if that place over on 53rd is still there."

"We can walk there and see," Tommy said, standing up quickly and chugging down the rest of his beer. He needed to get out, take a walk, even if it was with Jon. He just needed to not be alone with Jon before he did something he couldn't take back. 

Jon did the same, discarding their bottles in the trash can before tugging on his coat. Together, they stepped out into the chilled, spring Chicago air and walked, the wind at their backs, to get pizza.

Tommy didn't know when it happened, when he stopped looking at Jon as his best friend and started looking at him as - something else. Maybe there was never a difference and Tommy was just now beginning to admit that in this post-White House world, he could let himself feel more for Jon. The problem was (and likely would always be) that Tommy could only be sure of his own feelings and could always only wonder about Jon's. 

The moment on the couch before, moments like that they'd had over the years - holding eye contact a few beats too long, a casual touch that felt heavier, catching Jon looking at him, heated flushes spreading across their faces - nudged Tommy in the direction of 'maybe.' But the real, deep fear that 'maybe' wasn't any more than him reading into things, coming at Jon with his own wants, held him back from acting.

It terrified him, the idea that he could lose Jon if he misread the situation and made a mistake.

They sat at a table along the wall, a Chicago-style pizza between them, a pitcher of beer to share. 

"So, uh - you and Emily broke up?" Tommy asked, looking to fill the silence and settling on that for the stupid reason that he wanted to get a better lay of the land, so to speak. Or, really, it was easy to default into that kind of small talk with Jon, even if hearing about him dating gave Tommy a dull ache all over.

He shrugged. "Hard to do things long distance this early on. It's fine, really." He looked fine about it, too, even though Tommy knew he had really liked her. "Maybe after Chicago, if there's still something there, if nothing happens - here."

"Right," Tommy found himself saying. 

Jon busied himself with pulling out a slice of pizza and shaking a napkin out on his lap. He looked at Tommy, just for a moment, a flush high on his cheekbones, then put his attention back to his pizza. "What about you? You - weren't you seeing that guy from HUD?" 

"I -" Tommy picked his fork up and scooted his chair in a little more, just for something to do. He poked at his pizza until he had a good-sized bit on the fork. 

It wasn't that it was a secret, that Tommy was bi, more like something he just didn't think he needed to broadcast. Which meant that he had never explicitly told Jon, for no reason other than it hadn't come up in casual conversation. This - well, this was casual conversation, and it had come up. So - "Yeah, it was - nothing. We were just hooking up."

Jon nodded a few times. "Nice. He was hot," he said off-handedly. Into his beer.

A piece of pepperoni fell off the fork and splattered onto the table. Tommy's face was hot, and he looked at Jon like he hadn't really seen him before. "Yeah, he - yeah. It was - good, but it was just - nothing serious, I mean."

Jon lifted his gaze and rubbed the back of his neck. He picked up his beer and drank it, a few long, successive gulps. "Right," he said, echoing Tommy from earlier. "Not - uh, looking for anything serious?"

Tommy couldn't focus on his pizza. This conversation was so unexpected. Not that he and Jon hadn't talked about dating and hooking up before, but this time it felt like the stakes were higher, like the conversation they were having on the surface and the conversation between the lines were completely different. Tommy didn't know how to interpret that. "I don't know. It'll be easier now that I'm not working 24-7, right? I guess if the right - person - came along, I'd, you know, re-evaluate."

"That makes sense," Jon said. "I guess I feel the same way."

Tommy smiled at him. "Cool. It's nice to not have work and politics looming over us, huh?"

Jon smiled right back. "Exactly." 

The tension was still there, inexplicable. Tommy didn't want to misinterpret it, but his stomach swirled from the beer and pizza and whatever - _this_ \- was happening between the two of them. Their conversation picked right back up, easy like always, bouncing there and back from sports to politics to music to whatever else was on their mind. Between the two of them, they finished the pizza, the pitcher of beer, and it was dark and wet when they left the pizza place and started back for Jon's apartment.

Even all bundled up, the air was cold, the wind nipping at the backs of their necks. Tommy wished he had a hood on his jacket, and he scrunched up his shoulders, walking close enough to Jon that their arms brushed with each step. 

"I'd forgotten how cold it gets with this wind," Jon said, rubbing his hands together, breathing on them.

Tommy took a chance, grabbing at Jon's hand before he could slip it into his pocket. He bumped the side of his fingers against Jon's, against his wrist, his palm, then laced their fingers together until they were holding hands. Warmth spread up into Tommy's body, and he focused on walking. "At least it's not raining," Tommy found himself saying, squeezing his fingers lightly around Jon's.

Jon stumbled, a quick trip-up in his pace, but he caught himself and didn't pull his hand away. "Yeah," he said.

Tommy glanced between them, at their joined hands. He was _holding hands with Jon_ , and Jon was letting him. His heart rate picked up, and he could barely feel the biting wind any more. All he could feel was Jon's palm pressed against his, the light brush of Jon's thumb across his knuckles. They walked in comfortable silence, rounded the corner with Jon's apartment building up ahead.

Jon pulled his hand away when they stopped at the door, to dig his keys out.

Even though he knew they were going inside, together, Tommy felt an urgency build up in these last few moments outside. He touched Jon's arm, just above his elbow. "Jon," he said, unable to keep the anxious hope out of his tone, even with just the one word, one name.

Keys in hand, Jon turned away from the door to look at Tommy. "Yeah, Tom?" The expression on his face, windswept and flushed, eyes wide as his gaze dropped, just for the briefest of moments, to Tommy's mouth, gave Tommy the last ounce of hope he needed to will himself to take the chance. 

"I -" Tommy shook his head and muttered, "fuck it," at the same time as he pressed his hand along the side of Jon's neck and leaned in to kiss him, open-mouthed, sudden, and hot. This wasn't the time for careful kisses, for anything gentle or hesitant. If he only had one shot at this, he needed to make it worth it.

It took a moment, probably from the shock, before Jon kissed him back. 

Tommy pictured this, imagined it more often than he would ever want to admit. And yet none of his fantasies compared even a little bit with it actually happening. Kissing Jon was like everything good in Tommy's life happening to him all at once. He felt the cold Chicago air all around him and didn't care, could focus only on the feeling of their mouths, Jon's tongue sliding against his own, Jon's hand up at the back of his head, fingers in his hair. He felt the stubble at Jon's jaw under his palm, tasted stale beer on his lips and didn't give a fuck. Though every one of Tommy's senses were heightened in that moment, the only thing that mattered was _Jon_.

When the kiss finally broke, Tommy's eyes met Jon's and he realized that what he saw there mirrored what he felt in himself, that maybe - no, not maybe, he _knew_ \- they were on the same page. "Is this -?"

Jon's hands moved over Tommy's shoulders, down his arms. He shook his head, swallowed. "I never thought I'd be _allowed_ to - that you'd want to."

"I do," Tommy said. "Fuck, I do. I want - I've been holding it all inside because I didn't want to lose you. I need you in my life, Jon. Like this, as friends, as - I don't know. But if this is a thing, if we can be together like this -"

"Yes," Jon said, cutting Tommy off with another kiss. "Yes. Fuck." Another kiss, crowding into Tommy's space, pushing him up against the door. His hands gripped Tommy at the waist, house keys digging into his side, Jon's long body pressed in against the length of Tommy's. 

"Inside," he managed to get out, without moving his mouth away from Jon's. 

It took three tries before Jon was able to get the key in the lock and the door open, three tries because he didn't seem to want to stop kissing Tommy now that they started. He almost dropped the keys, but, eventually, Jon managed to get the door open and the two of them stumbled inside together.

 

 

Tommy always woke up earlier than anyone else, and though the temperature was still cold and he bet the wind hadn't let up yet, he still went for an early morning run, leaving Jon sprawled out in bed. It was a good time for him to sort through the jumble of thoughts and emotions crowding into his mind. Though he was much less confused now than he was just the day before.

It was like a weight had been lifted, this feeling of happiness filling his chest. That cliché, walking on air, floating with happiness, whatever - it was true. He felt better that morning than he had in weeks, months, _years_. He ran, light-footed, swift, working up a sweat. 

Whatever this was between him and Jon, he wanted it. He wanted to take it slowly but also get right to the good stuff. He wanted to see their future together in a year, a decade, tomorrow morning. Mostly, though, Tommy _wanted_ , and he now believed that it was okay to want. To want Jon, want this, want _us_ in a way that wasn't what they already were. He'd settled before, had convinced himself that if all he could ever have was Jon in his life, best friends, it was fine. Now that he had the taste of more, he couldn't go back.

He stopped at Dunkin' Donuts and ordered Jon's favorites before jogging back to the apartment.

Jon looked up from his phone, where he was leaning against the kitchen counter. His smile filled his face, and any lingering worry Tommy had about what this was between them faded away. "Hey," he greeted.

"Hey," Tommy said, crossing to him, leading with Jon's Dunkin' order. 

Jon took it and set it on the counter beside his phone, not even checking to see if it was right. Instead, he put his hands on Tommy's cheeks and kissed him, slow and soft. Like he wasn't sure if he was going to get to do it again. "Good morning."

Tommy's cheeks hurt as he smiled. "Mmn." He kissed him again, spread his palm out against Jon's stomach, fingers curling into the soft material of his t-shirt.

Jon's phone buzzed beside them, and he pulled back to check it. "It's Lovett," he said.

"Isn't it really early for him?" Tommy asked, stepping to the side and unpacking the Dunkin' bag for both of them. He glanced at Jon.

He shrugged. "I don't think he's gone to bed yet actually." He scratched the back of his head, touched his fingertips to Tommy's wrist, the back of his hand. "I - uh, told him what happened. That we're -" Jon laughed lightly at himself trying to sort through the words. "I told him that you're my boyfriend now."

Tommy sipped his coffee and leaned against the side of the fridge, an eyebrow arched. "You told Lovett that I'm your boyfriend before you told me?"

Jon, blushing, ducked his face. He pressed his hand to his cheek. "Sorry," he said. He looked over at him. "Hey Tommy," he said, and Tommy heard the hitch in his own breath at the same time he heard it in Jon's. "You're my boyfriend."

All that love and happiness bubbled up inside of Tommy as he laughed. "Damn right I am," he said, grabbing at Jon's waist so he could pull him in and kiss him again. He already lost count of how many times he'd kissed Jon in such a short period of time, but it didn't matter. He knew they had thousands still to go, adding them up every single day from now on.


End file.
